Trip down memory lane: From Connie Mack to Ellyn Bogdanoff

Brittany Wallman

Occasionally I give you an oldie but goodie from our archives. This time, while researching U.S. Senate candidate Connie Mack for tonight's debate, I ran across this gem about the start of Ellyn Bogdanoff's career. It ran Jan. 20, 2004, and was written by a former staff writer, Jeremy Milarsky. Headline: Bogdanoff emerges into the spotlight. Enjoy: She was the shy one, the intense one who listened quietly and watched with deep, dark eyes. But years ago, it may have been an oversized alligator head and an orange jumpsuit that helped Ellyn Bogdanoff overcome her shyness. A friend had encouraged her to dress up as the "Gator" mascot at Palm Beach Gardens High School in the '70s, and the young Bogdanoff needed to win votes from the cheerleading squad to get the job. She won that election, the first of her life. Bogdanoff, a 44-year-old political consultant, won her most recent election, too. She defeated six candidates for Florida House District 91, winning by only 12 votes. State officials certified the election results a week ago, and Bogdanoff, who officially takes office Jan. 28, will meet this week with Florida House Speaker Johnnie Byrd. She will finish the term of Connie Mack IV, who resigned to run for Congress. She must run again in November if she wants to continue representing the district, which runs along the coast from southeast Boca Raton to Dania Beach. Bogdanoff's life has its share of irony, both political and personal. Bogdanoff has worked on several campaigns and run for office twice, but since the Jan. 6 special election, "I've gotten a few calls from people asking who [Bogdanoff] is," said former Broward GOP chairman Ed Pozzouli. She is a politician who listens more than she talks and almost never interrupts people. And she is a woman who grew up as a bashful girl and now is in a job that absolutely requires her to be outgoing. Although she comes off as outgoing now, "that little part of me is always there," Bogdanoff said. "I guess what I feel inside is not what I project to people." Bogdanoff began her activism as a mother. She has three children: Matthew, 19, Alec, 16, and Danna, 11. They are educated in Broward County's public school system. Their mother says a good PTA can make a good school. So it seemed appropriate that Bogdanoff's first stab at public office was a campaign for a seat on the Broward County School Board. In 1996, she challenged former board member Miriam Oliphant. Where Oliphant glides into a room and aggressively shakes the hands of would-be votes, Bogdanoff takes a deep breath and works the room more methodically. "We always gave her credit for being able to do that," Bogdanoff said of her former campaign rival. While Bogdanoff lost the race against Oliphant, she earned 43 percent of the vote in a region where only 32 percent of the voters are Republicans like her. Her next campaign, against state Sen. Steve Geller, D-Hallandale Beach in 1998, was fraught with negative attack ads by both sides. Some called it Broward's most vicious campaign in recent years. Bogdanoff lost, but earned 44 percent of the vote. According to Pozzouli, Bogdanoff learned from her loss. "Ellyn has intellect, an ability to learn from her experiences," Pozzouli said. "It's always been my experience that you learn more from experiences that weren't quite successful than those [that] were." Bogdanoff helped in the effort to make Broward School Board members run in districts, rather than at-large. She is pro-choice and wants more money for education, while making the schools more responsive. A GOP insider, Bogdanoff worked to defeat the county-mayor referendum in 2000 because she thought a strong mayor in Broward would be a Democrat and, therefore, bad news for her party. She also helped one of her political allies, Cyndi Hutchinson, defeat veteran Fort Lauderdale city commissioner Jack Latona for his seat that same year. In recent years, Bogdanoff has become less "intense" with people, in her own words, and focuses more on her strengths. She has managed several political campaigns and is considered one of the most influential women in the Broward GOP. In her purse and on her nightstand, she is never without a pen and paper, in case someone has a question she can't immediately answer. "I write every idea down and I follow up with the person," she said. Bogdanoff gained another edge with people in 1998, when she met Boca Raton Mayor Steve Abrams to help with the mayor's aborted campaign for state House. Abrams helped Bogdanoff with her latest campaign for state House. It was in the district's four Boca Raton-based precincts that she earned enough votes to put her over the top. For her husband of 23 years, she's come a long way from her shy roots. "When we first got married, we went on a cruise," said Steve Bogdanoff, a Plantation dentist. "By the time it was over, I knew everybody on the cruise and she hardly knew the people in the next cabin. "It's definitely been an evolution for her." Jeremy Milarsky can be reached at jmilarsky@sun-sentinel.com or 954-572-2020.